


loose leash

by Artikka



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Canon Compliant, Gen, I mean it, Slave Mindset, Slavery, Unreliable Narrator, What-If, but pretty much all the events go down the same, except for the change in anakin's mindset, we jest about qui-gon "buying" anakin but what if he actually believed that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27424633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artikka/pseuds/Artikka
Summary: "When he’s nine years old, the Jedi buy him from Watto.Technically, Master Qui-gon wins Anakin in a bet. But the result’s no different all the same. The Jedi bought him, the Jedi won him, and he has to leave his mother behind."
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Mentioned Padme Amidala/Anakin Skywalker - Relationship, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 68
Kudos: 331





	loose leash

When Anakin Skywalker is three years old, he’s sold for the first time.

The first three years of his life are strange ones. Filled with love and joy, yes, courtesy of his mother and the other slaves in Gardulla’s palace, but moreso filled with fear. Hate. He is only three. He understands little. But Gardulla decides that, at two, at three, he understands enough to see his mother beaten. He understands enough to be beaten himself. 

He is deemed, at the very least, too little to be whipped. So he only has the one lash mark, curling at the base of his spine, when the day comes that he and his mother are handed over to Watto in chains. 

Anakin knows, even then, that he must take his hate and bury it deep down, where the masters can never see it. A hateful slave is a dead one, as his mother says. She teaches him not to let his fury show, to draw the spark away from his eyes and leave it curdling somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

“One day,” she tells him, words heavy with the weight of destiny, “you will be free. You will be free to let your hatred show, your anger show. But until then, bury them. It is no good if they get you killed.”

Watto is . . . still a master. He can’t be called kinder. No master is kind. But he is safer, to a point. He is too apathetic for beatings, most of the time, and prefers to let his displeasure show by forgetting to feed them, or forgetting to provide them water. But life continues, and life is safer. Anakin learns to fix and to build. His mother learns to fix and build more quickly, so that Anakin never bears the brunt of any punishment should things go wrong. A droid is built, stealthily enough so that Watto never ends up taking it away. Podraces are noticed. Anakin is noticed, and suddenly  _ he’s _ in the race, his mother sneaking out to the stands to watch with her heart in her throat. She is never caught. 

Shmi Skywalker knows better than to be caught.

.

When he’s nine years old, the Jedi buy him from Watto.

_ Technically _ , Master Qui-gon wins Anakin in a bet. But the result’s no different all the same. The Jedi bought him, the Jedi won him, and he has to leave his mother behind. 

“Be brave, my son,” she says, pretending that he can’t see the lines of worry etched into her face. She’s hoping quietly—they’re both hoping quietly—that if he can’t be leaving her for freedom, at least he’s leaving her for a safer Master.

This hope is somewhat diminished when they hear Qui-gon, self-satisfied as all Core-worlders are, insist that Anakin is free now.  _ Oh, _ they realize,  _ he’s one of those Masters.  _ His mother had once had one of  _ those _ Masters, who insisted loudly that she was free to anyone who would listen, then beat her blind when she tried to leave. She had warned him, later, when he was old enough to understand, to  _ never _ believe a Master.

He leaves his mother behind, leaving warmth, comfort, hope, behind with her.

.

A few days later, Qui-gon dies. 

For a wild, joyful moment, he’s convinced that he’s  _ free _ now, that his Master is dead and he can go home, try and help his mother, work on getting his chip out—

He’s abruptly reminded that it was the Jedi that won him, not Qui-gon alone.

Freedom has never seemed more out of reach. At least on Tatooine it had just been Watto he would have needed to escape. Being kept in a Temple of thousands of Jedi is a different story. 

In addition, the Jedi seem to be the type of Masters who are intent on pretending that they don’t own slaves. There is no talk of chips or detonators, no talk of punishments or beatings. But there is talk of service, of “respect”, drilled into his head day by day.

“Serve the greater good.”

“Put others’ needs above your own.”

“Address Jedi Masters by their proper titles. Give them the respect they are due.”

“You must let go of your attachments.”

They don’t beat him, which is a welcome change. And they don’t withhold food or water, although he gets his fair share of raised eyebrows when he gets caught squirreling food away for later. But even Gardulla had never tried to make him forget his mother. 

.

At first, he had thought that the other “padawans” and “initiates” were like him, bought off various planets. It’s a logical conclusion--they all answer to the masters, after all. But when Obi-wan, a “Padawan”, is “Knighted” and suddenly becomes “Master Kenobi”, he realizes that it must be some strange sort of cycle.

His questions and probing are met with jeers, raised eyebrows, and quiet taunts. It seems the other padawans aren’t like him, after all. In any way.

And they make it clear that they don’t want to be.

.

The years are difficult. Obi-wan Kenobi is a strange, strange Master. Strict, yes, and sometimes snappish, but. . . gentle. Almost kind. At times, Anakin finds himself looking at him wondering if this is what it’s like to have a father. 

His mother’s voice filters into his thoughts and reminds him otherwise. Loving a Master is a dangerous, dangerous thing.

He doesn’t truly understand his purpose here. His days are spent, well, learning. Learning how to read, to write. To fight. To feel the force. 

Why have the Jedi bought him? They had thought him dangerous originally, hadn’t they? Found him worthless? They’d been ready to ship him right back to Tatooine before Obi-wan had convinced them of his value, somehow.

He comes to the conclusion eventually that it must have been for that prophecy that Qui-gon had mentioned. To “bring balance”, whatever that was supposed to mean. 

He hopes it won’t be painful, when the time comes. It’s naive to hope that his life will continue to be as comfortable as it is now--even Gardulla’s favorites were thrown in the pit eventually--but the Jedi haven’t seemed the type to take pleasure in the pain of their slaves. So far.

.

The Masters and Padawans have many names and many words for him. How many are true is debatable, but they are tossed around all the same, like grains of sand in a vicious, howling wind.

“Chosen One” is one he hears whispered often, passing through the halls with his head down and steps quiet. Sometimes it’s uttered with reverence, other times with bitterness, other times with disbelief.

Various iterations of “freak” are muttered from time to time amongst his age-mates. Some use far politer versions of the word, some far ruder, but the message is the same: he doesn’t belong. Not when it takes him a year to finally learn to read and write in basic, not when he can’t meditate without being immediately overwhelmed by sights and sounds the force echoes to him, not when his stuttering explanations of Jedi philosophy are met with raised eyebrows and sighs.

“Slave” is one that they try not to let him hear. He’s only heard it once, when they jeer about his lack of control. But it had  _ stung _ like nothing had ever stung before. He knows his reality, of course. But. . . do they really have to rub it in his face?

And of course there’s “dangerous.” In spars when he moves too quickly, too fiercely. In spats with the other padawans, where he gives as good as he gets. In those moments in class where the force becomes too much and he loses control.

His least favorites are “arrogant” and “ungrateful”. He doesn’t hear them often, to be fair--it’s nothing his Master would ever tell him, although he wonders sometimes if Obi-wan doesn’t think it. But he’s heard it murmured when he scowls too fiercely, speaks too confidently, tries to assert that yes, he  _ is _ valuable, he  _ is  _ skilled, the Jedi aren’t just wasting their time on a worthless investment--

“You can be grateful for what you have,” his mother said to him once after Watto’s jeers about ‘showing gratitude where it’s due’, “but never,  _ never _ be grateful to the Masters. They gave you  _ nothing. _ ”

He swallows back the urge to retort and holds back a shudder. 

He tries his best to keep quiet like his mother taught him, and continues to learn.

.

.

When he’s twelve years old, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic takes an interest in him. 

He remembers the man, vaguely, from the invasion on Naboo. He had seemed relatively gentle, but calculating. Sharp. The smile he had given Anakin at the festival had been kind but somewhat. . . strange. As if there was something more lurking behind it.

In person, the man is rather less intimidating. Master Windu had informed him and his Master in clipped tones that the Chancellor had requested to see Anakin, to “help him settle in,” whatever that meant. 

The visit is interesting, to say the least. The man does seem kind, almost grandfatherly, but then again, so had Qui-gon. He gets the sense throughout the conversation that for all his flowery words, the Chancellor doesn’t have a particularly high opinion of the Jedi Order or the Jedi themselves. It’s, well. . . Anakin can certainly relate, a little. Either way, their jaunt through Coruscant’s underlevels is memorable, to say the least. And he takes a shameful sort of pleasure in knowing it’s something his Master would never allow him to do.

And so visits to the Chancellor’s office (that rarely stay in the Chancellor’s office) become a regular routine. 

.

When he’s nineteen years old, three massive upheavals happen all at once.

The first: his mother dies.

He’d been dreaming about it for months, her tied up in a tent somewhere, tortured day and night, her blood splattering across the sand, her screams echoing in his ears--

He’d tried to ask his Master to rescue her, or for permission to rescue her in the very least, as subtly as he could, in the vague hope that perhaps empathy or honor or maybe even kindness might sway his Master to his side. 

No luck.

“There are no kind masters,” he remembers his mother saying, and he forces himself to believe it. Hoping otherwise will only end in disappointment.

The Senator he’s assigned to protect, however, has no such qualms, and they rush to Tatooine too little, too late. His mother dies in his arms, a victim of senseless, baseless, gratuitous violence, and he paints the desert sand in blood.

The second upheaval: a war breaks out, and the other shoe finally drops.

He remembers asking his mother, once, why they were beat less often than the other slaves. She had sighed, world weary, carrying a deep sorrow in her bones, but well aware that Anakin was old enough for honesty.

“He doesn’t need to beat you.” she had said, looking away towards the window, “because he needs you in top shape to throw your life away for him in the pod races.”

He learns, finally, the reason why the Jedi never beat him.

He is nineteen years old, and he is to fight in a war.

The third: he gets married. Padme Amidala is brilliant, beautiful, and brave. She’s also freeborn.

He had worried, a little, about how she would feel marrying a slave. She doesn’t seem to care much, which makes him both love and hate her a little more. She isn’t rejecting him or pushing him aside because of his status. But a small part of him had hoped she would try to help free him.

For a second, he wonders. Maybe Padme doesn’t know he’s a slave at all. Maybe she thinks he had chosen the path of the Jedi willingly rather than been traded from one Master to another. These doubts evaporate, however, when he remembers that she had been there when Qui-gon had won him.

He loves Padme Amidala, of course. And he knows this is fairly normal for a union between a slave and a freeborn; Cliegg Lars had bought his mother before marrying her, after all. 

But he still wishes. 

.

When he’s nearing twenty years old, he is knighted.

He’s one of the youngest Knights, and the masters make it clear: this promotion is only so that he can be shipped off to lead the clones into battle more quickly.

The clones are another thing entirely. 

They are millions and millions of identical men, trained for nothing but war and death, taught that they are nothing but  _ numbers _ and cannon fodder, tools for the Jedi to win the Republic’s battles. Each Jedi has their own battalion to lead, and all the more blood on their hands for it. It’s nauseating. 

He remembers the tale of the favoured slaves and forcibly reminds himself not to be grateful to the Masters. A freedman wouldn’t have to worry about living and dying on the battlefields at all unless they chose to. Even so, he is relieved that he has less in common with the clones than he could have had.

They have names, of course, that they hold tightly and never let anyone steal away from them. The Jedi allow this, encourage it, even, and so he refers to his men by their names in public and in private with little issue. Captain Rex is bold and clever, and no doubt the best battle partner any Jedi could ask for. Obi-wan’s Commander Cody is much the same.

The war has begun, and they no longer have time to breathe.

They go to war.

.

It’s only a few months later when something completely unprecedented happens.

Anakin is given a . . . Padawan.

Her name is Ahsoka Tano, and she is bright and quick-witted and reckless, and quickly wins over half the camp in less than half an hour's time.

It’s the last thing he ever expected, to be given a Padawan, and slipping into the role of a “Master” is. . . difficult. But he manages, she manages, and they manage.

It’s two months in when he realizes he hasn’t been playing the role of “Master,” but that of “Brother”. It’s five months in when he realizes that he calls her family, unabashedly, in his mind, for all that he could never do that with his Master.

It’s two years in when she’s nearly put to death for crimes she didn’t commit, and disappears from the Order, from his life, forever.

.

If he had thought the war was miserable before, it’s nothing compared to now. 

Every battle drags and drags, and he loses more and more men as it escalates. The Chancellor’s gentle words do nothing for him, anymore, nor the uneasy comfort he hates himself for seeking from his Master. Even Padme can do little.

He loves her. Of course he loves her. 

But sometimes, when he’s awake at night staring up at the ceiling, he thinks he might hate her, a little bit, for having what he could never have.

He thinks he hates everyone a little bit.

.

When he’s twenty two years old it starts to look like the war might be ending.

Ahsoka comes back, briefly, and for all her hurry to get away from them both, there’s some joy to be had in their reunion.

They head back to Coruscant, him and his Master, save the Chancellor, and the  _ Dooku’s _ dead and then all they have left to do is track down Grievous and this might really just tie itself up neatly in a little bow so that they can all  _ rest _ .

Of course, it’s not to be.

Padme’s pregnant, and his first reaction is pure and utter joy, but then the dreams start, just like with his mother.

She’s going to die.

She’s going to die.

Then he’s shoved on the Council by the Chancellor, who’s starting to act more and more like some sort of Master, and just when he thinks maybe he can make some use out of this after all, maybe look into the Archives, he’s denied the access. 

Of course.

Because slaves don’t get to be Masters.

He’s taken aback, slightly. The Jedi’s way had always been to leave his status unacknowledged and awkwardly edged around. This blatant addressal of it is new to him. But he sits down, nevertheless, and tries to bite his tongue. 

It only partly works.

Then Obi-wan is gone, and it turns out the Chancellor  _ is _ some sort of Master, after all. 

A Sith Master.

Things fall into place rather clearly after that. He has, for the first time in his life, the opportunity to  _ choose _ a Master. 

His life with the Jedi had been. . . fortunate. They had been safe masters. He has no idea what sort of Master the Chancellor is. But the Jedi won’t help Padme. Their way is to let go. If he chooses the Jedi, he is choosing her death.

The Chancellor promises to save her. And the Chancellor has made it a habit, in their many meetings, to keep his word.

.

The Chancellor does not keep his word, and the Chancellor, it turns out, is an exceptionally cruel Master.

He chose wrong.

His Master-- _ former _ Master, now--is the one to cut him to pieces on Mustafar. His new Master finds him, and Anakin almost wishes he would be left to die instead.

He isn’t left to die.

His Master cares little for how the pieces are put back together, only that they are there. The suit is a mechanical monstrosity and for the first time in his life, it’s not one he can fix.

His years pass in agony and apathy. He starts to doubt that even death will lead to freedom.

.

When he’s forty four years old, everything changes. 

He realizes that he has a son. He also realizes, for the first time, that he can kill his master.

He may die during an ensuing confrontation, it’s true. In fact, he probably will. But he has a  _ son _ . He has someone to fight for, someone who might fight for  _ him _ .

Luke rejects him.

He’s not sure why he expected otherwise. Luke’s mother had been content to let him remain a slave as well.

.

When he’s forty six years old, the strangest thing happens.

Luke comes back. 

It’s both wonderful and terrible all at once. He is not alone anymore, but it’s been twenty--almost thirty--years, and he knows the former Chancellor’s games well. Sidious wants him dead, and Luke as his new shiny toy. At the end of the night only one of them will be left standing, if Sidious has his way.

It is a tragedy for the first freeborn Skywalker’s freedom to be so short-lived. But it will be easier if Luke can just accept his fate. 

It will be easier.

.

Luke, it seems, has little interest in what is easy.

And because of that, because of Luke, he is free, in the end, when he dies.

He doesn’t know if it was courage, stupidity, rage, or love that had him hefting his Master-- _ former _ Master--down a reactor pit. In the end, it hardly matters. His Master is dead. All his Masters are dead. 

In the end it’s just him, dying, and his son, free.

His life has been rather miserable, in all honesty.

But the end of it is a freeing one.

And for that, he is grateful.


End file.
